Posttraumatic Growth: Spouses’ Relationship Quality and Psychological Distress

ABSTRACT

While research links interpersonal processes to posttraumatic growth (PTG; Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2006a), little is known about whether partners’ PTG has consequences for people’s (i.e., actors’) relationship functioning and psychological distress. Sixty-one married couples who had experienced severe flooding completed measures of PTG, perceptions of spouses’ PTG, relationship quality, and psychological distress 6 and 12 months following the event. Partners’ increased PTG predicted actors’ increased perceptions of partners’ PTG, which predicted actors’ increased relationship quality, which, in turn, predicted actors’ decreased psychological distress. Thus, partners’ PTG can benefit spouses’ evaluations of their relationship and, ultimately, actors’ psychological well-being.

KEYWORDS:

• Dyadic processes
• posttraumatic growth
• psychological distress
• relationship quality
• relationships

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Lawrence Calhoun, Arnie Cann, and Richard Tedeschi for their advice in designing this project and for providing extremely helpful feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. We are also grateful to Mary J. Redlinger, Teal Allard, Nicole Freeman, Deanna Morey, Katelyn Donald, and Josh Morey for their assistance with data collection.